Guenther Steiner hopes to resolve Kevin Magnussen's contract situation much earlier after the high-profile exit of Mick Schumacher last season.
Haas waited until the final weeks of the 2022 season before finalising their driver line-up. Magnussen always had a contract for 2023, but Schumacher's deal expired at the end of last season and team principal Steiner took his time before making a call on the 24-year-old's future.
Schumacher was replaced by the more experienced Nico Hulkenberg, who was given a multi-year deal. That means Steiner does not have to worry about the German's seat for this year, but he will have a decision to make regarding Magnussen.
The Dane returned to the team weeks before the start of the 2022 season, replacing the axed Nikita Mazepin, and made an instant impact with a fifth-placed finish in Bahrain. Another high point last year was his surprise pole position in Brazil – a first for both driver and team.
But Steiner was not wholly satisfied with Magnussen's performances throughout last season, expressing frustration about the 30-year-old several times in his newly-released book recounting the 2022 campaign. In a sit-down interview with Mirror Sport, the Italian-American team boss expects Hulkenberg's presence to change things.
"We all know what Kevin can be doing but we all need to be pushed," said Steiner. "Kevin is not in a happy place at the moment, being behind Nico. In qualifying he is not happy. He is happy for the team and he knows the car is there for him to be able to do it – he just needs to get it done.
"I'm pretty sure that he can get it done. He's got the talent and he did it before, he just needs to step up and get everything out of it that's there. It's much easier having an experienced team-mate who you can look at and say, 'How is he doing that?'. They get all the data from each other and they can see it. And it shows that he cares."
Regarding Magnussen's contract situation, Steiner is again in no rush – but would prefer to not leave it so late this year. He said: " In the end it is all down to performance but, at the moment, I'm pretty relaxed about it. I want to at least give another five races to see where we are and then start to think about it.
"I always said last year that I would have loved to have set the drivers earlier, but we wanted to give Mick the chance to show what he can do. Hopefully this year we can confirm what we are doing before the summer break because it's not nice from my point of view.
"People ask and I answer – that's fine – but it's also the work behind it and the team not knowing what they need to do. Hopefully we can get a confirmation of our driver line-up for next year earlier than we did last year."
